Ebook: An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory

From the enchanted surroundings of cinemas to the heightened romance of cinema going – on screen and in the back row – Annette Kuhn explores cinema-going in the 1930s, when ‘going to the pictures’ was everybody’s favourite spare-time activity. Drawing on interviews with cinema-goers and contemporary ideas about cultural history, she discovers how cinema provided glamour to young people growing up in an austere climate of ‘making do’. She shows how audiences looked to their screen heroines and heroes for inspiration and looks at the important role of cinema-going in courtship, romance and make-believe. This fascinating book is a major contribution to understanding both the role of cinema in its heyday and the nature of popular memory.